Abstract

Photorefractive asymmetric Fabry–Pérot quantum‐well structures yield significantly enhanced diffraction during four‐wave mixing by employing the sensitive amplitude and phase control of multiple‐beam interference within the device. We present an Al0.1Ga0.9As/GaAs photorefractive quantum‐well device with a near optimal input diffraction efficiency of 0.36% and an AlAs/GaAs quantum‐well device with an output diffraction efficiency of 200%.